Harold Weston, Dos Passos Reading, 1933. Oil on canvas, 22.125 x 16 in. Acquired 1933. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Antanas Tasev, Man Reading, 1927. Pencil on paper, 6 1/4 x 9 in. Acquired 1949. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Marcel Gromaire, Nude Reading, 1929. Ink on paper, 13 3/8 x 9 1/2 in. Gift of Jean Goriany, 1943. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Overflow coat check at admissions, December 30, 2013. Photo: Sarah Osborne Bender
Starting with the government shutdown in October and the opening of Van Gogh Repetitions, we knew we were in for a busy season here. But it was one heck of a December for the Phillips as we welcomed 24,558 visitors (well above our budget attendance of 19,800.) The shop likely had its highest sales month ever, 21% over last December during our Degas exhibition. And the café was so popular, they had to fashion a sign announcing when capacity was reached. (And it has spent a lot of time on display.)
To all of our visitors and members (new and old), thank you for making this such a successful month. And to our colleagues on the front lines selling tickets and signing up members, checking coats, staffing and stocking the shop, making lattes and ladling soups in the café, and, most of all, keeping the artworks secure, THANK YOU!
Gus Heagerty, assistant director at Shakespeare Theatre Company, guest blogs today about the upcoming staged reading of Vincent in Brixton at the Phillips on Jan. 9 at 6 pm.
Left: Vincent van Gogh, Lullaby: Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse), 1889. Oil on canvas, 36 1/2 x 28 5/8 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of John T. Spaulding; Right: Vincent van Gogh, Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La Berceuse), 1889. Oil on canvas, 36 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection. The Art Institute of Chicago
After visiting the Van Gogh Repetitions exhibition at the Phillips, I am filling in the blanks between each “repetition.” What was happening to Vincent between each pass at a portrait, or landscape? What spurs an artist to return to a figure or subject, over and over? We repeat to practice. We repeat to perfect. Perhaps we repeat because we feel we’ve grasped a greater understanding of the figure or landscape. Our repetitions refine our point of view. What is van Gogh attempting to refine in his repetitions?
Vincent in Brixton performed at the Old Globe in 2005
The many letters we are left with, and Nicholas Wright’s play Vincent in Brixton, acquaint us with a man straddling hemispheres of choice. At its core, the play imagines Vincent as he defines the difference between living life as an artist, and life as a man lead by his faith.
The play spans three years, each scene taking place around a “big wooden table, functional, and unusual.” Vincent will revisit this table, again and again, throughout the play. There is a force, sometimes known and sometimes unknown to him, drawing him back to the table. What he gathers at the table is the seed of what grows into a magnificent life as an artist.
Gus Heagerty, assistant director at Shakespeare Theatre Company
